Friday, August 26, 2011

Horn of Africa Drought



More than 11 million people across the Horn of Africa are in urgent need of food assistance and WFP needs your help to get it to them. Here are 10 things absolutely anyone can do to help us save lives.


Tweets for the Horn of Africa 
11 million people across HornofAfrica in desperate need of food assistance. WFP needs our help to feed them.
10 things anyone can do to help hungry people in the HornofAfrica.
Latest news and info from the front lines of #HornOfAfrica hunger crisis available here!
Click on the tweets above and access your Twitter account.


Check out the interactive map! 


Stay on top of the hunger crisis with this regularly updated, interactive map that shows how and where WFP is operating.


Take the quiz! 


Put your knowledge about the Horn of Africa hunger crisis to the test. Take this quiz and feed a child. Then share it with your friends!


1. Make an online donation
Over the coming weeks, WFP will feed more people across the Horn of Africa than live in Los Angeles. That’s a big job. Making a secure online donation is one of the best ways you can help us get it done. Donate now.
2. Donate by text message
Don't have a credit card? No problem. If you live in the United States, Canada the United Kingdom or South Africa you can also donate by text message. Here's how:
For the US, text the word AID to this number: 27722 to donate $10.
For Canada, text the word RELIEF to this number: 45678 to donate $5. 
For the UK, text the word AID to this number: 70303 to donate £3.
For South Africa, text the word FOOD to this number: 38727 to donate R10.
3. Take the quiz
How much do you know about what’s going on in the Horn of Africa? Find out by taking this short quiz. For every person who takes it, a child will receive a warm meal thanks to an anonymous donor. Put your knowledge to the test and then challenge your friends! Take the quiz
4. Share this video
It’s less than one minute long and will give you a good idea of the situation in the Horn of Africa and what WFP is doing about it. After you’ve seen it make sure all of your friends see it as well. Watch the video
5. Stay current
Thousands of people are on the move across Somalia and WFP is rapidly scaling up its operations in the region. Check out our interactive crisis map to see how WFP's emergency operation is unfolding. For the latest news and updates plus plus photos, videos and stories from the field go to the Crisis Page
6. Get social
The world needs to know about what’s going on in the Horn of Africa and that starts with your friends on Facebook, your followers on Twitter, your subscribers on YouTube etc.  Join our online communities and share the message with your friends and followers. Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
7. Grab a banner
Are you a blogger? Go check out our collection of banners and then put one on your site. Make sure that the people who come to your blog know what it’s for. If you don’t write a blog yourself, send this link around to the bloggers you like to read and tell them what to do.Grab a banner
8. Get these ads published
Contact your local newspaper and ask them to publish one of our print ads. Make sure they know that you think this is the single most important story in the news right now. See the print ads
9. Be creative
There are hundreds of things ordinary people can do to help our operations in the Horn of Africa. Taking up a collection at school or holding a neighbourhood fundraiser are just a few of things are supporters have done to help feed the hungry. If you need some inspiration, find out what Andrew, an 11-year-old from Ghana, has done to help children like him in the Horn of Africa. Read the story
10. Keep us posted
We want to know what you’re doing to raise money and awareness to help us do our work. You can write to us at community@wfp.org, get in touch with us on Twitter at @WFP or post a comment on our Facebook page.


Click this link: Horn of Africa Drought 

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is a puzzle video game developed by Finland-based Rovio Mobile. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was first released for Apple's iOS in December 2009. Since that time, over 12 million copies of the game have been purchased from Apple's App Store, which has prompted the company to design versions for other touchscreen-based smartphones, such as those using the Android operating system, among others.

In the game, players use a slingshot to launch birds at pigs stationed on or within various structures, with the intent of destroying all the pigs on the playfield. As players advance through the game, new birds appear, some with special abilities that can be activated by the player. Rovio Mobile has supported Angry Birds with numerous free updates that add additional game content, and the company has even released stand-alone holiday and promotional versions of the game.

Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of addictive gameplay, comical style, and low price. Its popularity led to versions of Angry Birds being created for personal computers and gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters and even long-term plans for a feature film or television series. With a combined 200 million downloads across all platforms and including both regular and special editions, the game has been called "one of the most mainstream games out right now", "one of the great runaway hits of 2010", and "the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far".

Angry Birds is a video game that started out on the iPhone. After being successful on the iPhone, the developers moved to other platforms such as BlackBerry and Android and finally launched Angry Birds Online. Angry Birds continues to be the #1 app in the iTunes app store and has been for a while.


The game is based on evil green monsters that steal the eggs of the birds. This makes them angry, hence the name "Angry Birds Online". To get the eggs back, you must destroy the fortresses of the green monsters by sending birds at them. There are all types of different birds, each with its own special ability. You have a set amount of birds you can use - if you destroy the fortress with those alloted birds, you beat the level. If you don't, you fail the level and need to try again.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

White and Black Hat SEO

What Is White-Hat SEO?
Any SEO tactic that maintains the integrity of your website and the SERPs (search engine results pages) is considered a "white-hat" search engine optimization tactic. These are the only tactics that we will use whenever applicable and which enhance rather than detract from your website and from the rankings.
White-Hat SEO Tactics:
Internal Linking
By far one of the easiest ways to stop your website from ranking well on the search engines is to make it difficult for search engines to find their way through it. Many sites use some form of script to enable fancy drop-down navigation, etc. Many of these scripts cannot be crawled by the search engines resulting in unindexed pages.
While many of these effects add visual appeal to a website, if you are using scripts or some other form of navigation that will hinder the spidering of your website it is important to add text links to the bottom of at least your homepage linking to all you main internal pages including a sitemap to your internal pages.
Reciprocal Linking
Exchanging links with other webmasters is a good way (not the best, but good) of attaining additional incoming links to your site. While the value of reciprocal links has declined a bit over the past year they certainly still do have their place.
A VERY important note is that if you do plan on building reciprocal links it is important to make sure that you do so intelligently. Random reciprocal link building in which you exchange links with any and virtually all sites that you can will not help you over the long run. Link only to sites that are related to yours and who's content your visitors will be interested in and preferably which contain the keywords that you want to target. Building relevancy through association is never a bad thing unless you're linking to bad neighborhoods (penalized industries and/or websites).
If you are planning or currently do undertake reciprocal link building you know how time consuming this process can be. An useful tool that can speed up the process is PRProwler. Essentially this tool allows you to find related sites with high PageRank, weeding out many of the sites that would simply be a waste of time to even visit.
Content Creation
Don't confuse "content creation" with doorway pages and the such. When we recommend content creation we are discussing creating quality, unique content that will be of interest to your visitors and which will add value to your site.
The more content-rich your site is the more valuable it will appear to the search engines, your human visitors, and to other webmasters who will be far more likely to link to your website if they find you to be a solid resource on their subject.
Creating good content can be very time-consuming, however it will be well worth the effort in the long run. As an additional bonus, these new pages can be used to target additional keywords related to the topic of the page.
Writing For Others
You know more about your business that those around you so why not let everyone know? Whether it be in the form of articles, forum posts, or a spotlight piece on someone else's website, creating content that other people will want to read and post on their sites is one of the best ways to build links to your website that don't require a reciprocal link back.
Site Optimization
The manipulation of your content, wording, and site structure for the purpose of attaining high search engine positioning is the backbone of SEO and the search engine positioning industry. Everything from creating solid title and meta tags to tweaking the content to maximize it's search engine effectiveness is key to any successful optimization effort.
That said, it is of primary importance that the optimization of a website not detract from the message and quality of content contained within the site. There's no point in driving traffic to a site that is so poorly worded that it cannot possibly convey the desired message and which thus, cannot sell. Site optimization must always take into account the maintenance of the salability and solid message of the site while maximizing it's exposure on the search engines.
What Is Black-Hat SEO?

These Tactics Are Considered Black-Hat For A Reason.
This Page Is To Note The Tactics That You Will Hear About From Other SEO's.
These Are Not Legitimate Tactics And While Some May Work In The Short Term.
They WILL Get Your Website Penalized And/Or Banned Eventually.
Constantly webmasters attempt to "trick" the search engines into ranking sites and pages based on illegitimate means. Whether this is through the use of doorway pages, hidden text, interlinking, keyword spamming or other means they are meant to only trick a search engine into placing a website high in the rankings. Because of this, sites using black-hat SEO tactics tend to drop from these positions as fast as they climb (if they do climb at all).
The following tactics are not listed to help you "trick" the search engines but rather to warn you against these tactics should you hear they are used by other SEO's (this is not to say that all other search engine optimization experts use these tactics, just that some do and you should be warned against them).
Due to the sheer number of tricks and scripts used against search engines they could not possibly all be listed here. Below you will find only some of the most common black-hat tactics. Many SEO's and webmasters have simply modified the below tactics in hopes that the new technique will work. Truthfully they may, but not forever and probably not for long.
Black-Hat SEO Tactics:
Keyword Stuffing
This is probably one of the most commonly abused forms of search engine spam. Essentially this is when a webmaster or SEO places a large number of instances of the targeted keyword phrase in hopes that the search engine will read this as relevant. In order to offset the fact that this text generally reads horribly it will often be placed at the bottom of a page and in a very small font size. An additional tactic that is often associated with this practice is hidden text which is commented on below.
Hidden Text
Hidden text is text that is set at the same color as the background or very close to it. While the major search engines can easily detect text set to the same color as a background some webmasters will try to get around it by creating an image file the same color as the text and setting the image file as the background. While undetectable at this time to the search engines this is blatant spam and websites using this tactic are usually quickly reported by competitors and the site blacklisted.
Cloaking
In short, cloaking is a method of presenting different information to the search engines than a human visitor would see. There are too many methods of cloaking to possibly list here and some of them are still undetectable by the search engines. That said, which methods still work and how long they will is rarely set-in-stone and like hidden text, when one of your competitors figures out what is being done (and don't think they aren't watching you if you're holding one of the top search engine positions) they can and will report your site and it will get banned.
Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are pages added to a website solely to target a specific keyword phrase or phrases and provide little in the way of value to a visitor. Generally the content on these pages provide no information and the page is only there to promote a phrase in hopes that once a visitor lands there, that they will go to the homepage and continue on from there. Often to save time these pages are generated by software and added to a site automatically. This is a very dangerous practice. Not only are many of the methods of injecting doorway pages banned by the search engines but a quick report to the search engine of this practice and your website will simply disappear along with all the legitimate ranks you have attained with your genuine content pages.
Redirects
Redirecting, when used as a black-hat tactic, is most commonly brought in as a compliment to doorway pages. Because doorway pages generally have little or no substantial content, redirects are sometime applied to automatically move a visitor to a page with actual content such as the homepage of the site. As quickly as the search engines find ways of detecting such redirects, the spammers are uncovering ways around detection. That said, the search engines figure them out eventually and your site will be penalized. That or you'll be reported by a competitor or a disgruntled searcher.
Duplicate Sites
A throwback tactic that rarely works these days. When affiliate programs became popular many webmasters would simply create a copy of the site they were promoting, tweak it a bit, and put it online in hopes that it would outrank the site it was promoting and capture their sales. As the search engines would ideally like to see unique content across all of their results this tactic was quickly banned and the search engines have methods for detecting and removing duplicate sites from their index. If the site is changed just enough to avoid automatic detection with hidden text or the such, you can once again be reported to the search engines and be banned that way.

Sources: http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/tactics/

What An SEO Can Do For Your Business

What is SEO?

An SEO is the abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

This is a chart showing an optimized site/business.


Since technology today is now ruling the world, and we people are also following from the oldest until to the latest trend of technology, it is a must for every business to used the internet to market their sales/business because if not then your out of the trend. It is also proven that Google is the main search engine mostly used by everyone in their searches. So to make your business known to the world, you should put your business number one(1) in their search engine, if not at least on the top ten(10) of the searches. And do you know who can only make that possible? SEO people is the only one who can help you in making your business know to the world. From On-page SEO which is the process of optimizing the content of your website. This includes the text, images and links on your website. Anything uploaded to your site's domain is considered on page up to Off-page SEO which is doing things off site to improve your sites search engine rankings. The only thing you can do off site to incraese your rankings is build up more links. More links will generally lead to better Google PageRank and better search engine rankings.

It is sometimes difficult to spot the good links; here are a few questions you should ask yourself when you are looking at sites or pages to get links from:
  • Is this site or page relevant to what I do?
  • Is this site linking out to any low quality off topic sites?
  • Is this site or page going to send the right sort of traffic?
  • Is this site or page ranking well in the search engines?
  • Does this site have a lot of links from other websites?
Using a defined keywords niche to your business, surely it would rank up number one in the search engine like google. That's how important SEO in a business today, people were already knowledgeable in computer world and they won't hesitate anymore to look manually on the yellow pages book to look for your business, they will just search it over search engine and click on the search result and the result that will be found on the first place will surely be clicked which is a great advantage for your business. So what are you waiting for? Do you have a business? then have it optimized now and get ready to be discovered by the world.


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Dengue Fever Signs, Symptoms and Preventions

Dengue fever (DF), a benign acute febrile syndrome, has been called the most vital mosquito-transmitted viral disease. It is systemic disease caused by one of four sero-types of virus from the genus Flavivirus, which also includes the pathogens responsible for yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis.

Dengue most often manifests itself with the sudden onset of the fever five to eight days after a bite from one of several species of Aedes mosquito, including A. aegyptii, A. albopictus, and A. scutellaris.
After two to four days of headache, fever, and muscle aches, the disease eases for 12 to 48 hours before returning with a skin rash, chills, swollen and reddened eyes, and the severe joint pains that caused Rush to name it “break bone fever,” an eponym that remains in use. Dengue fever is usually benign and self limited, but a small number of cases will progress to the hemorrhagic form, in which bleeding from multiple organs and mucosal surfaces occurs and for which the mortality is about 5 percent. No vaccine is available for dengue, and there is no effective treatment. Because the mosquitoes that transmit the disease are day-biting, mosquito netting is of limited usefulness, and the only effective means of control has been to eliminate the Aedes vectors.

Symptoms and Signs of Dengue Fever

Dengue fever is characterized by acute onset of high fever, frontal headache, retro-orbital pain, myalgia, arthralgias, nausea, vomiting, and often maculopapular rash and hemorrhagic manifestations.
Severity ranges from asymptomatic infections to fatal hypotensive and hemorrhagic disease. Hemorrhagic manifestations are usually skin hemorrhages (i.e., petechiae, Purpura, or ecchymoses), but may also include epistaxis bleeding gums, haematemesis, and melaena.
The acute phase of illness lasts approximately a week, whereas convalescence, characterized by weakness, malaise, and anorexia, may last 1-2 weeks. DHF may initially resemble dengue fever. As fever subsides, thrombocytopenia and hemoconcentration due to vascular plasma leakage may develop, resulting in circulatory failure and severe hemorrhage. Warning signs for Dengue Shock Syndrome include severe abdominal pain, protracted vomiting, marked temperature change (from fever to hypothermia), or change in mental status (irritability or obtundation). DSS, which can lead to profound shock and death, can develop rapidly. Early signs include cold clammy skin, restlessness, rapid weak pulse, narrowing of pulse pressure, or hypotension. DHF and DSS can occur in both children and adults.

Treatment of dengue fever

A major problem associated with dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome is the severe increase of vascular permeability, resulting in the loss of up to 20% of plasma volume from the vascular compartments. This plasma leakage often leads to shock, and under some conditions, to death. Early detection of this state and quick replacement of body fluid with electrolyte solutions can reverse DSS quite effectively.
In the case of DHF, where high body temperature is also a concern, regulated doses of paracetamol (Tylenol) are a useful treatment.
Dengue shock syndrome patients need to be closely observed for the onset of shock. Determination of hematocrit (the percent of whole blood composed of red blood cells) is important. It should be determined daily from the third day of illness. If determination of hematocrit is not possible then hemoglobin levels should be determined accurately.
In DSS the state of shock is a medical emergency. The patient should be immediately given plasma replacement and then methodically checked. Because of the large volume of fluid replacement there might be a drop in hematocrit toward the later part of the treatment, but that should not be interpreted as sign of internal hemorrhage, particularly if the patient has a strong pulse and correct blood pressure.
Restlessness is often a major problem in children with DSS. Use of sedatives to help these children sleep can provide symptomatic relief. But long acting sedatives should be avoided.
Oxygen might be required to treat patients in shock but it should be managed carefully by competent nurses.
If there are patients with a significant amount of bleeding, blood transfusions might be required. Internal bleeding may be difficult to detect. A sharp drop of hematocrit with no signs of improvements in spite of adequate fluid replacement indicates significant internal bleeding.

Homeopathic treatment of dengue fever - Homeopathy is one of the most popular holistic systems of medicine. The selection of remedy is based upon the theory of individualization and symptoms similarity by using holistic approach. This is the only way through which a state of complete health can be regained by removing all the sign and symptoms from which the patient is suffering. The aim of homeopathy is not only to treat dengue fever but to address its underlying cause and individual susceptibility. As far as therapeutic medication is concerned, several remedies are available to cure dengue fever symptoms that can be selected on the basis of cause, sensations and modalities of the complaints.  For individualized remedy selection and treatment, the patient should consult a qualified homeopathic doctor in person. There are following remedies which are helpful in the treatment of dengue fever symptoms:
Rhus Tox, Bryonia, pulsatilla, Veratrum album, Nux Vom, Natrum Mur, Phosphorous, Ipecauc, Sanguinaria, Arsenic Album, Lobelia Inflate, Chamomilla  and many other medicines.

Preventions

Change water in vases/ bowls every other day.
Add sand granular insecticide to water.
  • Remove water from flower pot plates every other day.
  • Turn over all storage containers
  • Inform your parents or any adults in your household to cover bamboo pole holders when not in use.
  • Clear blockages and put Bti insecticide in roof gutters at least once a month.
  • Check your landscape structures for any water retention & mosquito breeding regularly.
  • Remove these structures if possible. Add in prescribed amounts of sand granular insecticides to stagnant water.
  • Wear shoes, socks, long pants and long-sleeved shirt
  • Use mosquito repellents
  • Mosquito coils
  • Mosquito nets




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